Fatal lacrosse bus crash probed

Police are investigating what caused a bus carrying a college women's lacrosse team to veer off the Pennsylvania Turnpike and crash into a tree, killing a pregnant coach, her unborn child and the driver.

Players and coaches from Seton Hill University, near Pittsburgh, were among 23 people aboard when the bus crashed Saturday morning. The team was headed to an afternoon game at Millersville University, about 50 miles from the crash site in central Pennsylvania.

Head coach Kristina Quigley, 30, of Greensburg died of her injuries at a hospital, Cumberland County authorities said. Quigley was about six months pregnant and her unborn son didn't survive. The bus driver, Anthony Guaetta, 61, of Johnstown, died at the scene.

Two victims flown to Penn State Hershey Medical Center remained there Sunday, but no information was released about their identities or conditions. A woman was in satisfactory condition at another hospital and was expected to be discharged later Sunday. All others aboard the bus were taken to hospitals as a precaution, but almost all were treated and released.

Police couldn't immediately say what had caused the crash. The front side of the bus, which was towed from the scene Saturday night, was shorn away, and the vehicle came to rest upright about 70 yards from the highway at the bottom of a grassy slope.

Both Saturday's game and a Sunday home game were canceled after the crash, and Seton Hill, a Catholic liberal arts school of about 2,500 students, said a memorial Mass was planned for Sunday night on campus. The school is also offering grief counseling to students.

Duquesne University women's lacrosse coach Mike Scerbo remembered Quigley as a warm, outgoing person who immediately impressed him when he hired her to be an assistant during the 2008 season.

Quigley, a Duquesne alum, spent just one season under Scerbo before moving to South Carolina to start Erskine College's NCAA Division II program.

“In that time, I really saw how much passion she had to be a coach, and how much she enjoyed working with the kids,” Scerbo said.